They say that necessity is the mother of invention.
I also think that scarcity can lead to experimentation.

The typical use of Golden’s gessos and grounds are to lay down a very thin layer to add tooth to paper, canvas, wood, or whatever support you are creating your art on.

However, I am rather poor and have been running low on some of my more frequently used texture mediums such as molding pastes and soft gel.
So I experimentated. (Sorry, I just like that word too much to conform. I exercise my right to creative word-making, lol!!) :O>

I put this pic up on Facebook and DeviantArt and asked for suggestions for colors. There were many good answers, and I think I may just have to make more of these and try out all the color combinations I think MAY look nice.
But several people mentioned turquoise, and that struck me as right.
Still, I could see my favorite “off” color — Diarylide Yellow – in the corners.
Especially because light molding paste absorbs color and so light and bright works best.

Using my handy-dandy color wheel, I picked out a triad with my yellow-orange at the top.
Then I carefully painted the pastel ground Permanent Violet Dark and the pumice gel Turquoise (Phthalo).
Immediately I fell in love with how the grounds turned the dark colors into rich, leathery texture-color!